Talk: Steven Jacobs on Raoul De Keyser's Early Works

Saturday, 11 April 2015 at 2pm

Inverleith House is delighted to welcome art
historian, Lecturer at Ghent University, and author of 'Raoul De Keyser:
Retour 1964-2006', Professor Steven Jacobs to discuss the exhibition at
Inverleith House.

Jacobs will focus on Raoul De Keyser's early
works featured in the exhibition in the context of the artist's oeuvre,
demonstrating the way in which certain themes and motifs, which were
developed early on, remained important throughout his entire career.

Raoul De Keyser acquired a reputation as a late bloomer, having
started his career relatively late, in 1964 when the artist was already
in his 30s. His international breakthrough only occurred in the late
1980s after his works were exhibited in leading international museums
and art galleries. This late international breakthrough has resulted in a
rather distorted image of De Keyser’s career among critics and
curators.

Jacobs will focus on some key works by De Keyser from the 1960s and
1970s, which show similarities with international currents of the day
(Pop Art, Hard Edge, Minimal Art) but are also marked by highly original
and quite personal characteristics. In addition, Jacobs will also
examine some of De Keyser’s paintings made in the late 1940s, which have
never been published.

Jacobs has written and published extensively on Raoul De Keyser, his
publications include Raoul De Keyser: Paintings 1980-2000 (Ludion, 2000)
and Raoul De Keyser: Retour 1964-2006 (Ludion, 2007). His other
research interests focus on the relations between film and the visual
arts. Other publications include The Wrong House: The Architecture of
Alfred Hitchcock (010 Publishers, 2007), Framing Pictures: Film and the
Visual Arts (Edinburgh University Press, 2011), and The Dark Galleries: A
Museum Guide to Painted Portraits in Film Noir, Gothic Melodramas, and
Ghost Stories of the 1940s and 1950s (MER-PaperKunsthalle, 2013, with
Lisa Colpaert). Steven Jacobs teaches at Ghent University.

Curator's Tours:

Raoul De Keyser: Paintings 1967 to 2012

Fridays, 6 and 20 March, 4 April at 2pm (1 hour)

Join curator Paul Nesbitt and Exhibitions Officer Chloe Reith as they lead an in-depth discussion on the work of Raoul De Keyser and the exhibition at Inverleith House.

The first major UK
solo exhibition in over a decade by Belgian painter Raoul De Keyser (b. Deinze,
Belgium, 1930, d. 2012). De Keyser’s paintings combine elements of both
abstract expressionism and figuration inspired by the natural world. His unique
approach pushed the boundaries of painting and explored its very nature through
the lens of everyday experience and this exhibition will present works spanning
the breadth of the artist's career. Free all welcome.

The Exhibition will run from 14 February to 12 April 2015, full events program coming soon.